Or at least an excessive amount. When one takes in that excessive amount it leads to a disease named “hypervitaminosis A.” The earliest case of this actually took place in a female Neanderthal, who is now known as “KNM-ER 1808,” who is also dates to be the earliest found Neanderthal. The way we know she suffered from hypervitaminosis A was all thanks to her bones. This disease caused her bones, mainly the ones of her limbs, to be “with a coat of woven bone that is up to seven millimeters thick in places.” Her bones told paleoanthropologist's that she lived for a few months with this disease, and seeing how this must have been painful to gather food, even to walk, it is theorized she was taken care of. In the time in which she lived, she would have been easy prey for the carnivores of then, and would not have lasted two days had she not had care. This is an exciting revelation because this shows the first example of a social bond; a strong one at that. It goes to show that Neanderthal's were more human than we thought, reason being is unlike pack animals in which when a member is weak they are left behind to the elements, but like humans, and a few animals (elephants for example), we are willing to leave some of the healthy behind to care for the sick, so as to eventually catch up.
It sounds like this hypervitaminosis is something that was lost to the ages, but that is not the case. The reason KNM-ER 1808 has this disease was simply put, an excess of vitamin A, of which we can suffer from now. The main theory of how she contracted this disease was from eating liver, and the liver is where the excess is stored (“where it is never broken down or detoxified”). The liver of carnivores, like dogs or even killer whales eat other animals, including their livers. The ingestion of the liver is the only theory that works because there are other foods high in vitamin A, carrots for example, but then she would have had to eat about 100 pounds of carrots as opposed to one pound of meat. The modern individuals to whom this happens are mostly polar explorers because all they have to eat are carnivores. A case in 1911 tells of a party of polar explorers whose most of their rations went down an ice crevasse, along with a member of their party and with a teams of dogs. They did the best to make the food they had left last, but they eventually had to resort to eating the dogs they had left. Their favourite part was the liver which was soft as opposed to the “stringy, tough, musky-tasting muscles,” and, as I have said before, dogs are amoung those carnivores in which it is easy to contract hypervitaminosis A from eating their liver. Toxic doses cause the tough “fibrous tissue that encases each bone, to rip free from the bone with each pull of a muscle...In the case of 1808, the blood formed huge clots, which ossified – turned into woven bone – before she died.”
This is just the first of small facts I have planned which are not long enough to be blog entries. If you have an itching to get to the bottom of a small fact that has been festering in your mind, or if you have a blog topic you would like me to cover, or if you would just like to express your thoughts on this first Fun Fact Friday, please feel free to comment below.
It sounds like this hypervitaminosis is something that was lost to the ages, but that is not the case. The reason KNM-ER 1808 has this disease was simply put, an excess of vitamin A, of which we can suffer from now. The main theory of how she contracted this disease was from eating liver, and the liver is where the excess is stored (“where it is never broken down or detoxified”). The liver of carnivores, like dogs or even killer whales eat other animals, including their livers. The ingestion of the liver is the only theory that works because there are other foods high in vitamin A, carrots for example, but then she would have had to eat about 100 pounds of carrots as opposed to one pound of meat. The modern individuals to whom this happens are mostly polar explorers because all they have to eat are carnivores. A case in 1911 tells of a party of polar explorers whose most of their rations went down an ice crevasse, along with a member of their party and with a teams of dogs. They did the best to make the food they had left last, but they eventually had to resort to eating the dogs they had left. Their favourite part was the liver which was soft as opposed to the “stringy, tough, musky-tasting muscles,” and, as I have said before, dogs are amoung those carnivores in which it is easy to contract hypervitaminosis A from eating their liver. Toxic doses cause the tough “fibrous tissue that encases each bone, to rip free from the bone with each pull of a muscle...In the case of 1808, the blood formed huge clots, which ossified – turned into woven bone – before she died.”
This is just the first of small facts I have planned which are not long enough to be blog entries. If you have an itching to get to the bottom of a small fact that has been festering in your mind, or if you have a blog topic you would like me to cover, or if you would just like to express your thoughts on this first Fun Fact Friday, please feel free to comment below.
RSS Feed
